662 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



Sect. 2. Of the Doctrine of Geological Uniformity. 



THE opinion that the history of the earth had in- 

 volved a series of catastrophes, confirmed by the 

 two great classes of facts, the symptoms of mecha- 

 nical violence on a very large scale, and of com- 

 plete changes in the living things by which the 

 earth had been tenanted, took strong hold of the 

 geologists of England, France, and Germany. Hut- 

 ton, though he denied that there was evidence of a 

 beginning of the present state of things, and refer- 

 red many processes in the formation of strata to 

 existing causes, did not assert that the elevatory 

 forces which raise continents from the bottom of 

 the ocean, were of the same order, as well as of 

 the same kind, with the volcanoes and earthquakes 

 which now shake the surface. His doctrine of uni- 

 formity was founded rather on the supposed analogy 

 of other lines of speculation, than on the examina- 

 tion of the amount of changes now going on. " The 

 Author of nature," it was said, " has not permitted 

 in His works any symptom of infancy or of old age, 

 or any sign by which we may estimate either their 

 future or their past duration :" and the example of 

 the planetary system was referred to in illustration 

 of this 4 . And a general persuasion that the cham- 

 pions of this theory were not disposed to accept 

 the usual opinions on the subject of creation, was 



4 Lyell, i. 4, p. 94. 



